Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

Enjoy these tips, tricks and insights that answer 100's of questions we've received from radiology and imaging professionals that need help buying, selling, servicing and maintaining their medical imaging equipment: MRI, CT, C-Arm, Digital X-ray, PET/CT and Women's Health. We extend the life of imaging equipment so that health care providers worldwide can extend the lives of patients. This is why we answer your imaging equipment questions.

Whether your budget won’t allow for a full service agreement or if you simply have a higher risk tolerance than many, you have choices when it comes to picking service for your medical imaging equipment.

If you prefer to manage your equipment risk yourself, paying for service calls and parts as you go, the following are some pointers that can help you achieve the best results possible from your time and materials service.

So, you're new to using the OEC 9800MD. You've got it fired up, and you're eager to try out the remote-controlled movements from the remote user interface (RUI) but, no matter where you push the joystick, the C-arm doesn't move at all. What gives?

Our service team has gotten calls like this from frustrated people before and, luckily, the most common solution is extremely simple. Take a look below to see what might be wrong and how you can fix it.

On February 18th, the FDA issued a recall of all GE MRI scanners with superconducting magnets. This includes 33 models in the GE line manufactured over the last 30 years. As a result of this order, thousands of units will need to be inspected and, potentially, corrected.

In a September 9th meeting, the American College of Radiology (ACR) asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to delay the determination of radiology reimbursements for the calendar year 2015 Fee Schedule.

This request was in response to the method CMS used to estimate capital equipment costs for PACS storage systems. Proposed payments were determined based on the cost of a standard desktop PC as opposed to a true PACS workstation. Clearly, CMS's understanding of the complexity and real costs of PACS is limited, however, the scope of this calculation is far from limited to PACS purchases and management.

One of the most common OEC 9800 problems our service team fields is image transfer failure. This is not surprising, given the number of variables involved. Sure, the C-arm could have a problem, but so could the PACS server, or even the cable you're running from the back of the system to the wall receptacle.

The following steps should help narrow down the variables and find the culprit.

Whether you're an orthopedic veteran or just starting out, you already know there are a lot of moving parts to keeping a practice running smoothly. Among those parts, of course, are the imaging systems you'll use to diagnose and treat your patients and all the "nuts and bolts" aspects of owning and operating them. That's precisely why we've compiled the following list of resource links. From choosing your systems, to getting them into your your building, to keeping them in peak operating shape, to estimating incoming revenue- there's something helpful for every stage of the orthopod game below.

We've been discussing upgrades from analog X-ray systems to digital radiography (DR) on our blog for a couple of years. The increases in efficiency, the cost savings vs. traditional film methods, the improvements in image quality- all of these have been covered in one article or another but, what we haven't fully demonstrated yet is how easy it is to start using one of these upgrades on your X-ray system. That ends today.

There are only so many hours in the day, and only so much storage space on a C-arm's onboard computer. Because of this, when you're choosing a C-arm, it's important to consider where you'll store your images and how you'll get them there.

For the GE XRD (or any X-ray room, for that matter), proper collimator function is important not just for optimum image quality, but also for controlling radiation dose for patients and practitioners alike. Collimators generally last a long while, but degradation and eventual failure are still possibilities that any facility using X-ray equipment needs to be prepared to respond to.

Whether your XRD collimator is on the fritz right now or you simply like to stay informed and think ahead, the following information will help you build your cost expectations, know what problems to look for, and help ensure that the installation of a replacement collimator goes smoothly.

About Us

Radiology and Imaging professionals come to us when they need help buying, selling, servicing and maintaining their medical imaging equipment: MRI, CT, C-Arm, Digital X-ray, PET/CT and Women's Health. We extend the life of imaging equipment so that health care providers worldwide can extend the lives of patients.